Itinerary review/ Suggestion on Swiss group/family

I am travelling to Switzerland with my parents and my husband in July-August 2014. We are planning a 5-6 day trip. I wanted to cover a city, a village, a peak and special train ride during this trip. However I am quite confused in picking places.

I have already booked the tickets from Paris to Basel for 31 st July

I came up with the following two itineraries but its turning out to be extremely expensive. Is there a group / family pass that I could purchase to reduce the expenditure on travel or shall i wait for the supersaver tickets?

Thanks for sharing your plans here. If you want to keep things affordable there are two options I would say:

Get a 4-day Swiss Saver Pass for 4 people (this includes a 10% discount on the pass because you're a group) and a Swiss Peak Pass. The Peak Pass allows you to visit several peaks at a very low cost. The only disadvantage is that you have to pick from the covered peaks, not the ones you have in mind. The Swiss Saver Pass includes trains, boats, city transport and even museums for free (and the Rigi mountain trip too). So you can really do a lot in 4 days if you can plan to limit traveling on the first or last day of your stay.

Get a Swiss Half Fare Card, stay in one town and do day trips from there. Lucerne would be a good base with plenty of options for 5 days. The advantage of this plan is that you can pick your daily activities based on the weather.

Check the links to the passes for more information. Also, the pages below may be of help:

The Glacier Express is worth it in Summer too, although there won't be snow in that season. See the Glacier Express page for a detailed overview of what to expect. It's a long trip though, and thus not the best fit for a budget trip. With the Swiss Pass, the trip is free, but you still need a seat reservation, which I think currently is CHF 33 per person.

You can best check the ISIC discounts at their website. As far as I know there are no huge savings with such a card. There are museum discounts, but with a Swiss Pass, many are free anyway. And the budget hotels Annika linked to can be booked by anyone.

The direction of traveling does not make a difference for the scenery. What matters is the covered legs. See the Glacier Express page I linked to in my previous post. There's a detailed overview of what to expect.

By the way, on August 3, don't stay in town if the weather is good. Make a boat trip, or travel to the Rigi and enjoy the view. It's all included in the pass so you might as well enjoy those benefits.